Blue Streak: Swearing, Free Speech & Sexual Harassment
The Wall Street Journal invited Richard Dooling to write its Millennial Essay on Swearing, One Thousand Years of Searing: From Swearing By To Swearing At. Writing in the New York Times, Richard Bernstein called Blue Streak “a charmingly impudent essay on language and sexual politics . . . less an […]
Critical Care: Revisited
The Meaning Of Life Is That It Stops The new IT article on health care: How American Health Care Killed My Father, by David Goldhill, writing in the September 2009 Atlantic. Richard Dooling on NPR’s Talk of the Nation discussing his opinion piece in the New York Times, “Heath […]
Writer Uninterrupted
If Microsoft’s EULA Applied To Books
Rapture For The Geeks
Survival Of The Smartest: Will Geeks Inherit The Earth? Purchase From Amazon. Media Coverage of Rapture For The Geeks: Sunday New York Times Op-Ed, “The Rise of the Machines,” by Richard Dooling. Jeremy Lott reviews Rapture For The Geeks at Ars Technica. The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. The New […]
Mothers Against World Of Warcraft
graphics by kevin ryan (kryan at dday dot com) Mothers Against World of Warcraft (Excerpted from Rapture For The Geeks, by Richard Dooling.) Let’s say that the Singularity is really coming, and let’s say it’s powered by Moore’s Law and Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns. Call the Technological Singularity a […]
Rejection, Thy Constant Companion
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. –Winston Churchill Most writers worry about rejection, not acceptance. Ray Bradbury says that the successful writer has to deal with both: “You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.” Several articles […]
Creighton University Disinvites Anne Lamott
Back in early 2007, Creighton University invited author Anne Lamott to speak at the school and exacerbated an ongoing spat with the Omaha Archdiocese, which was unhappy to learn that Lamott supposedly supported assisted suicide. Creighton University officials said they invited Anne Lamott to speak before her book Grace (Eventually): […]
The Wizard Drops the Curtain – New York Times
I attended Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting and wrote about it for The New York Times Op-Ed page: THE Berkshire Hathaway Corporation held its annual shareholders meeting here last weekend, drawing a record 27,000 capitalist faithful from all over the world to worship at the Qwest Center in downtown Omaha. Onstage, […]
On Publishing
On Writing Aspiring writers often seek advice about how to find a publisher or a literary agent. Unfortunately, most authors don’t know much about the book business, unless they happen to live and work in the New York publishing world. Jane Friedman I once featured links to various sites about […]
How To Query A Literary Agent
Ye Olde Query Letter I loathe writing. On the other hand I’m a great believer in money. –S.J. Perelman Many large publishing houses accept only manuscripts submitted by agents. Many agents aren’t interested in representing unpublished authors. So now what? If you are an unpublished novelist, don’t bother a literary […]
If By Whiskey – On Campaign Speeches
If alcohol is a crutch, then Jack Daniel’s is the wheelchair. Eight glasses and you forget the English language. You just have one massive vowel movement. –Robin Williams Political Oratory Before the bloom of the campaign is off the rose of the election, it’s worth recalling the finest example of […]
Sweet Home Omaha – New York Times
The fourth installment of The New York Times Home Economics series: Sweet Home Omaha – New York Times, by Richard Dooling. “HOUSING prices are falling on both coasts, and bubble panic is around the corner. The financial magazines are already grabbing their readers by the throat and taunting them with […]
Home Economics – Sunday New York Times
The third Economic Postcard from Omaha: “Immigration Beefs Up Nebraska,” by Richard Dooling is at the New York Times site, with links to the first two dispatches in the series. “Unemployment’s down, inflation’s up and consumer confidence blows with the wind. Just how are Americans actually doing? Last fall, the […]
Python On XP: 7 Minutes To “Hello World!”
“Python Foot” graphic by David Day. How To Install Python On Windows XP Instead of being all things to all users, this little how-to assumes the following: You are a Windows user who is curious about computer programming; You would like to install the Python computer language on your Windows […]
Why Python on Windows XP?
If you don’t know any computer languages, I recommend starting with Python. It is cleanly designed, well documented, and relatively kind to beginners. Despite being a good first language, it is not just a toy; it is very powerful and flexible and well suited for large projects. From How To […]